Mindful Morning Routine
Mindful morning routine is essential to frame our lives, because, a collection of days makes life, and how we start our day shapes our lives. We wake up with reserves of energy- Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual, recharged during sleep, and what's the point of sleep if you're not utilizing the reserves, because it goes in drain when you sleep that night, there's no carry over!
Here's how I shape my morning routine to take care of myself: Physically, Emotionally, Mentally, and Spiritually.
1. The previous day and night:
Your next morning depends on previous day's activities you've done, including but not limited to foods you've consumed, the timings of your eating, the amount of fibre in your diet, bowel movements, physical exertion, stress levels, to say a few. So, your plan to wake up early next day can't release you of responsibilities today!
Food: More on the food habits in another post, but in brief, do not consume any calories at least 4 hours before bed, associating your food times to the levels of sun can help you track. Middle of the day when sun is fully up and centre is the time for a large meal, mornings and evenings are for healthy small meals. Your body sends blood and energy to stomach and other digestive organs to aid the process when you ingest foods, so planning your meal right helps you keep your energies under your control. The right kinds of foods (nutritarian diet is what I follow for the most part) with the balanced amounts of micro, macro, and essential nutrients are unquestionably necessary to maintain your Circadian Rhythm, hence your mood, energy levels, emotional stability, physical agility, etc.,
Sleep: Unless you work on your energies at a spiritual level, you'd need at least 6 hours of sleep, so aiming to sleep between 9:45 pm to 10 pm helps. Consulting a physician if you have trouble sleeping is essential since too much or too little sleep could be a sign of serious underlying situation in your body. The quality of sleep carries more weight than the length of it, so aiming or fixing your sleep quality should be prioritized.
Mindset: OK, you wake up at whatever time you consider early, but what do you do once you're up? That's something you should consider before you want to push yourself for it, because given we're used to love the inertia we share with the bed, it takes more than just 'I want to become a morning person' to go against that force trying to pull you back to bed. Working on hobbies, career, spirituality, meditate, physical workout like gymming or running, getting household chores done, cooking, whatever your priorities are, invest your fresh, undisturbed precious morning time to obtain valuable outcomes. So, keep this in mind before you fall asleep. And when you wake up next morning to a mind that asks you to get back to bed since nothing is important, remind yourself why you set that alarm in the first place.
2. Wake up time:
This may sound crazy, because I have been a professional Laz'er until a few months ago and I JUST CAN'T move myself out of bed in the morning, so I know how a few of you may view this, but I can be a living example that you can get rid this 'Can't wake up early' syndrome. I wake up at 3:45 am (On several days), or at 4:15 am (If I fall back asleep at 3:45 am). I am not giving a time range, because my alarm rings (sometimes without an alarm) and I am awake. I choose to wake up this early because of a few reasons:
Brahma Muhurtam (Time of the creator): Time between 3:20 am and 4:00 am is usually termed as the creator time, and the spiritual benefits to stay awake and mindful during this time has tangible benefits like enhanced spiritual awareness, feeling oneness and connection with the World, enhanced creativity and intuition, minimized chatter and distractions, so focussed meditative possibilities and so on.
The physical health benefits include enhanced metabolism since the toxins can be effectively excreted by Liver, improved quality of sleep, improved Circadian Rhythm, and much more.
Well, I am a mom of a 3 year old and I work full time, so, unless I miss this window, I can't find time for myself, period. This is more of a need than a desire for aesthetic purposes!
3. Creative activity:
This is between 4 and 5 am, extending upto 5:30 am on some days. I do most of my writing during this time. With no distractions from the outside world, and less stimulations from people around, this is a dedicated time for creative expressions like writing, drawing, or just focussing on what you love to do (Other than sleeping and eating of course), passion or hobby, get your creative self working and spark the intuitive capabilities that lurks within you. Cash out on all that creator in you, bring out what your 'on a regular day, doing things' self can't create. It is precious. The only thing that matters is, how well you channel your creativity, not the recognition, not the acknowledgements, not the audience, not the criticisms, only that you pour your creation out, when you're truly inspired, you enjoy the state of flow, the process of creation more than their outcomes. And anything that you create from that state of flow cannot be created with your alert, Beta wave brain that we always possess during the day. Take full advantage of this divine time and you'd be sweetly surprised about the potential that you carry!
4. Physical activity:
After 5 or 5:30 am I head to gym, work out for about an hour, either cardio or strength training, I usually do alternate days of each. I infact have a written schedule and list of workouts and reps, since I have never worked out before recent times. The whole social media goes on and on about how physical work out is essential to keep your fitness, but talks little about how it can prevent diseases, and in fact have some curing properties when combined with a nutrient rich diet. Keeping the heart pumping, muscles activating are more important than we could recognize. Beyond the aesthetics of having flat abs and big biceps, physical activity can actually act as a shield against cardiovascular and respiratory disorders amongst many. If gym isn't the place for you, you can choose to workout from home from the tons of free workout videos available. I recommend Pamela Reif workout videos, or Chloe Ting's. You can also choose to take a brisk walk or jog for that hour, taking in all the fresh morning air and beautiful rising sun rays!
5. Spiritual activity:
I then return say at about 6:30, shower, and get to Yoga/ meditation for about an hour, until 8 am. This may sound crazy to some, but hang on, there's more. The reason I say this is a spiritual activity is because, only when you go to a brain state that's lower than beta, like Alpha, sometimes Theta, could you recognize that the intellectual activity is not the only thing that we are capable of, but reaching a state of no thoughts and no emotions could help us find the unwavering, grounded true nature of who we are, which is what spiritual teachings help us understand. The human capabilities are endless, and hitting those calm brain wave states gives us a glimpse of what we can't see at the surface level. Breath goes much beyond oxygenation and focussing on breath for over a particular amount of time would naturally bring you to calmer states, which grounds you, hence clarifies your thought process amongst countless other benefits. Apart from stabilizing both sides of your brain and setting the equilibrium within you, it helps you tap into the intuitive potential if done right. This is the only way to trust your intuition. Until you cleared off the surface level opinionated biased intellectual and emotional drama, the intuition is just a one-sided thought and emotion based conclusion from an agitated brain, which just can't be trusted. You can find your spiritual teacher to get initiated since I find otherwise, there's almost no way you can sit for an entire hour in meditative state! No, sleep doesn't count!
6. Mental activity:
Once I am off of meditation in about an hour (sometimes, I lose track of time and go beyond 1:15), the happy fresh cleansing of my thoughts and emotions combined with the bliss of not having outside distractions give me the calmness and clarity like ever before. Then I head to feed my daughter and while I do that, I write my morning pages, which is a stream of conscious writing for about 3 pages. Although I do not have much these days, since the chatter subsides after yoga, I write if I see any visions or intuitions from the meditation so I do not miss out on precious downloads from higher states of consciousness. Otherwise, it's mostly my to do for the day, work wise and personal. It's almost like a brain dump, writing any task that comes up, and then I organize if required. I also think about areas of life chart, and find if I should work on any of them, so a bucket list might come up someday. I try to use Julia Cameron's chart which includes a high level areas of life or Vishen's 12 areas of life balances. This keeps me on track for the path I should take or my next 'to do' focus apart from the routine. If I have nothing much going on in those pages, I read an e-book. You can also try reading one of the daily quotes or prompts from Dalai Lama or Lao Tzu or any of your spiritual inspiration, and reflect on it, write your morning pages based on that!
7. Breakfast:
Since I wake up earlier than before and sleep earlier the night before, I tend to feel hunger at around 10 am. I try to intermittent fast whenever possible, but because of my stomach acid issues, I can't leave my stomach empty for longer period, so I eat my breakfast. I try to follow as much nutritarian diet as possible, it is still new, I am finding ways to incorporate it in my everyday cooking as much as possible. Essentially, my breakfast is usually a fruits, nuts, and seeds smoothie or a wholesome bowl of warm oats. Sometimes if I fancy, I tend to make avocado sourdough rye multigrain toast with eggs on the side. Essentially, the point is, choosing to eat nutritious, nourishing, antioxidant filled, micronutrient loaded wholesome breakfast could give a good kickstart to your day within your body, rather than a grab and go fastfood brunch. The bagel isn't worth the hype primarily because- They're make usually with enriched flour, which is stripped off of all fibres and nutrients, and hence those empty calories with no nutritional value is better left outside your tummy. As much as I LOVE idli, dosa, chapati, poori, pongal etc., I see that the glycemic index of the ingredients are much higher and given my minimal physical exertion throughout the day, I don't use all that glucose right away! More on foods in another post since I can go on and on!
In essence:
try to be out of your bed before the sun is out. Have a great start to the morning with mindful morning routine and become an early riser, I mean, we can't even consciously recall our sleep, restfulness should be for us to work to our maximum potential, not otherwise. So, let's try to live fully through the conscious use of every moment :)
Check out the reference readings.
Sru🔥
References:
Breaking the habit of being yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
The code of the extraordinary mind by Vishen Lakhiani
Inner Engineering by Sadhguru
Eat for Life by Dr. Joel Fuhrman The Artist's Life by Julia Cameron
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